RRND Email Full Text (Scheduled)

Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]

“Tensions are high in Tanzania after the government outlawed planned protests over its disputed victory in elections in October. Police and soldiers were patrolling largely empty streets in major cities on Tuesday – Tanzania’s Independence Day – after the government preemptively ruled that any protest would be illegal and treated as a coup attempt, and urged people to stay at home. … police trucks and officers on foot patrolled the commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, the administrative capital Dodoma and the northeastern city of Arusha, while roadblocks were erected near key government installations including President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s heavily guarded offices. The situation appeared calm as of late morning, although one resident and some activists on social media said small protests had begun in some parts of the city. This could not be immediately confirmed.” (12/09/25)

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/9/tanzania-tightens-security-bans-protests-against-disputed-election

Source: Associated Press

“Conservative Supreme Court justices on Tuesday appeared to back a Republican-led drive, supported by President Donald Trump’s administration, to overturn a quarter-century-old decision and erase limits on how much political parties can spend in coordination with candidates for Congress and president. … The limits stem from a desire to prevent large donors from skirting caps on individual contributions to a candidate by directing unlimited sums to the party, with the understanding that the money will be spent on behalf of the candidate. The Federal Election Commission and the GOP argue that the court should cast a skeptical eye on the limits, in line with recent high court decisions.” (12/09/25)

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-campaign-finance-republican-spending-limits-0381e78b1e8a8da0e49f5b55b543894e

Source: US News & World Report

“The Justice Department can publicly release investigative materials from a sex trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime confidant of Jeffrey Epstein, a federal judge said on Tuesday. Judge Paul A. Engelmayer ruled after the Justice Department in November asked two judges in New York to unseal grand jury transcripts and exhibits from Maxwell and Epstein’s cases, along with investigative materials that could amount to hundreds or thousands of previously unreleased documents. The ruling, in the wake of the passage last month of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, means the records could be made public within 10 days. The law requires the Justice Department provide Epstein-related records to the public in a searchable format by Dec. 19.” (12/09/25)

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/new-york/articles/2025-12-09/judge-grants-justice-department-request-to-unseal-ghislaine-maxwell-records-in-sex-trafficking-case

Source: CNN

“The Justice Department said in court documents on Tuesday that it plans to continue its efforts to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey. The department’s stance was revealed in a lawsuit brought by the former FBI’s director’s friend and former lawyer Dan Richman. It comes two weeks after Comey’s previous indictment was dismissed and after a judge put temporary limits on the evidence prosecutors can use in future grand jury proceedings. In the documents filed Tuesday — in a fast-moving court battle over evidence used to investigate Comey over his statements to Congress five years ago — the Justice Department refers to the situation as both a ‘pending criminal investigation’ and ‘a potential federal criminal prosecution.’ … Comey pleaded not guilty to lying to Congress before the case against him was dismissed just before Thanksgiving by a judge who found the interim US attorney, Lindsey Halligan, was serving in the role unlawfully.” (12/09/25)

https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/09/politics/james-comey-dan-richman-justice-department-prosecuting

Source: CBS News

“Four young men were detained by Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities and put into a rehabilitation program for walking around in public dressed up as their favorite characters from the hit British drama ‘Peaky Blinders.’ The Taliban government’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice said the four friends — who had become popular in their local Jibrail township, in the southern province of Herat, for strutting through the streets in trench coats and flat caps — were detained for ‘promoting foreign culture.'” (12/09/25)

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/taliban-detains-men-peaky-blinders-style-for-rehabilitation-sharia-law/

Source: The Guardian [UK]

“French celebrities and politicians on the left have expressed outrage after Brigitte Macron was filmed using a derogatory and sexist slur to describe feminist protesters at a theatre show in Paris. A video filmed on Sunday showed France’s first lady in discussion backstage at the Folies Bergère theatre in Paris with Ary Abittan, a French actor and comedian previously accused of rape, before a performance he was about to give. The previous night, feminist campaigners had disrupted his show with shouts of: ‘Abittan, rapist!’ Before Sunday’s performance, Macron asked him how he was feeling. When he said he was feeling scared, she referred to the protesters as ‘sales connes’ (dirty or stupid bitches) and adding that if they reappeared, ‘we’ll toss them out.’ … Politicians on the left criticised the use of a sexist slur and some said Brigitte Macron should apologise.” (12/09/25)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/09/brigitte-macron-filmed-slur-feminist-protesters-paris

Source: Engadget

“The Southern District of Texas announced the seizure of more than $50 million in NVIDIA GPUs bound for China in violation of US export laws. Authorities arrested two businessmen, one of them the owner of a Houston company, accused of smuggling the chips used to train and run AI models. … The smuggling operation used a combination of falsified paperwork, purposefully misclassified goods, straw purchasers and even removing the NVIDIA labels on GPUs to ship them to both mainland China and Hong Kong. The conspirators face between 10 and 20 years in prison if convicted.” (12/09/25)

https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/texas-authorities-have-made-multiple-arrests-in-an-nvidia-gpu-smuggling-operation-144749526.html?src=rss

Source: BBC News [UK state media]

“The Lithuanian government has declared a ‘nationwide emergency situation’ in response to a series of incursions from neighbouring Belarus by weather balloons carrying smuggled cigarettes. Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene condemned the balloon incursions as a ‘hybrid attack’ by Belarus that posed a real risk to national security and civil aviation. This year alone, officials say about 600 balloons linked to smuggling and almost 200 drones have entered Lithuanian airspace, leading to the repeated closure of Vilnius airport. Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko denies being behind the incursions, alleging the issue has been ‘politicised’ by Lithuania, which is a member of both the EU and Nato.” (12/09/25)

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c39pr3d10wlo

Source: CBC News [Canadian state media]

“Judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) sentenced a leader of the feared Sudanese Janjaweed militia to 20 years imprisonment Tuesday for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the catastrophic conflict in Darfur more than two decades ago. At a hearing last month, prosecutors sought a life sentence for Ali Muhammad Ali Abd–Al-Rahman who was was convicted in October of 27 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity that included ordering mass executions and bludgeoning two prisoners to death with an ax in 2003-2004.” (12/09/25)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/international-criminal-court-sudanese-leader-9.7008390

Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp

“States in general, and the EU in particular, have a lot in common with the users of social media platforms: Both want to decide how those platforms get used. States in general, and the EU in particular, also have a lot in common with the owners of social media platforms: Both want to make money on those platforms. Those commonalities make for an alliance of convenience between users and owners versus states. Owners make their money by pleasing users; states make their money by demanding bribes … er, ‘fines’ … from owners, often as punishment for refusing to cooperate in state censorship of user-created content. … So why doesn’t [Elon Musk] start his own country, with a state fashioned after his own liking, base his social media platform there, do business exclusively there, and tell the other states to go pound sand when they demand control and/or a piece of the financial action?” (12/09/25)

https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/20195

Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger

“It’s easy to assume that with its drug-war killings in the Caribbean, the Pentagon is sending a message only to Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro: ‘We can kill your citizens with impunity and there is nothing that you or anyone else can do about it.’ In actuality, however, the Pentagon is sending the same message to the American people: ‘We can kill anyone we want, including American citizens, and there is nothing that you or anyone else can do about it.'” (12/09/25)

https://www.fff.org/2025/12/09/the-national-security-establishments-message-to-americans/

Source: Eunomia
by Daniel Larison

“The Trump administration released its National Security Strategy (NSS) last week. There is limited value in trying to make sense of Trump’s foreign policy by looking at strategy documents when the president largely just makes things up as he goes and often makes policy decisions for arbitrary and irrational reasons. The only real value that the NSS has this year is that it tells us how the administration is justifying the president’s ad hoc interventions around the world. For the Western Hemisphere, this means dressing up the president’s militarism and meddling as the ‘Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.'” (12/09/25)

https://daniellarison.substack.com/p/the-crude-imperialism-of-the-trump

Source: The UnPopulist
by Ilya Somin

“Nationalism doesn’t just historically correlate with bigotry — it consistently drives antisemitism and other racial and ethnic prejudices. Indeed, nationalism intensifies preexisting antisemitic impulses. To the degree that today’s conservatives decide to embrace — or even just make peace with — nationalism and dispense with the universalist liberal principles of the American Founding, they will find it difficult to impossible to stem the spread of antisemitism in their midst.” (12/09/25)

https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/nationalism-is-driving-the-neo-rights

Source: Orange County Register
by Mimi Robson

“If there is one theme that has shaped recent American politics, it is the steady concentration of power in the presidency. Congress — under both parties — has repeatedly delegated authority that was never meant to rest in a single office. The consequences are now impossible to ignore. The actions of President Donald Trump reveal how fragile our liberties become when one person holds too much power.” (12/08/25)

https://archive.is/8XRlG

Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff

“Over the weekend, tens of thousands of Brazilian women participated in rallies calling for stronger action to tackle violence against women, which remains intolerably high. A few weeks earlier, several thousand South African women participated in ‘lie-downs’ across the country to call attention to the same issue. ‘Just as women many years ago protested … for the changes that we are privileged to experience today,’ said a South African participant in her 20s, ‘we also need to be the generation that steps up.’ Coinciding with the global ’16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence’ campaign, these events underscore how much remains to be done to uphold the safety and dignity of women and girls the world over. As well as laws and enforcement, the process requires confronting deep-rooted traditions and cultural notions that constrain the full participation and vigorous contributions of half the world’s population.” (12/08/25)

https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2025/1208/Defending-women-s-worth-and-well-being

Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey

“Via the USDA, President Trump has announced a fresh $12 billion aid package for farmers, with $11 billion earmarked specifically for crop producers of corn, soybeans, and wheat. The administration says this is a ‘bridge’ to help farmers survive low prices and trade disputes. The money, they claim, comes directly from tariff revenues. Payments are set to arrive early next year, provided farmers file their respective paperwork by December 19. Supporters are cheering this as ‘putting American agriculture first.’ But let’s get real. In plain English: the government is breaking farmers’ legs with tariffs and then handing them crutches paid for by you, the consumer. … Who actually gets this money? You might picture a struggling family with a small red barn. The actual data says otherwise. According to the Cato Institute, farm subsidies overwhelmingly benefit large, wealthy agribusinesses.” (12/09/25)

https://palmbeachexaminer.substack.com/p/the-real-cost-of-trumps-12-billion

Source: Brownstone Institute
by Joel Salatin

“Failing to bear the costs and consequences of bad decisions is as perverse as failing to incentivize the costs and consequences of good decisions. This seems elementary enough to not even mention, but we often create public policy that seems to deny this fundamental axiom. A case in point is federal government safety nets. Often begun with every good intention, they frequently break down after years of implementation. Government programs tend to grow more bureaucratic, becoming more interested in expanding power and budgets than in solving the problem they were chartered to solve.” (12/09/25)

https://brownstone.org/articles/ditch-the-subsidies-grow-what-actually-works/

Source: TomDispatch
by Tom Engelhardt

“Only recently, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP30, met in Brazil for two weeks. While 194 countries were represented there, the historically greatest fossil-fuelizer on the planet, Donald Trump’s United States, was, of course, missing in action (for the first time in 30 years). Worse yet, while the conference was underway, the Trump administration announced a new plan to open 1.3 billion acres (no, that is not a misprint!) of coastal waters to new oil and gas drilling. As for the conference itself, after floundering and almost foundering, its member nations barely agreed on a way more or less forward, what were termed ‘baby steps’ toward a better (or at least less utterly disastrous) future. And yet, can you believe this? The final agreement didn’t even include the words ‘fossil fuels’ or reaffirm in blunt language that they should be phased out! (President Trump must have been pleased!)” (12/09/25)

https://tomdispatch.com/climate-change-summer-or-nuclear-winter-2/

Source: Law & Liberty
by Helen Dale

“If you’re as old as I am (and live in the UK), you’ve likely read Our Island Story and its affectionate parody, 1066 and All That. You’ll know that Cavaliers were Wrong but Wromantic while Roundheads were Right but Repulsive. Oliver Cromwell had Charles I’s head chopped off, you see, and regicide is bad. Cromwell was, however, a great parliamentarian, and for that reason, memorable. Historian George Owers — without naming either earlier work — takes the substance of these amusing observations and runs with them in The Rage of Party: How Whig Versus Tory Made Modern Britain, an account of the emergence of modern party politics during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. His personal sympathies are with the Tories (wrong but wromantic), but he is a fair and scrupulous scholar.” (12/09/25)

https://lawliberty.org/book-review/whig-tory-and-the-modern-world/

Source: New York Sun
by Larry Kudlow

“It may well be that there’s an affordability crisis and consumers have no confidence in America or President Trump. Yet sometimes facts speak louder than political conjectures or biased polls. Black Friday spending surged this year to new highs, fueled by record breaking online spending that reached $11.8 billion on Black Friday alone, according to Market Data. Online sales on Black Friday made up about 10 percent of total sales for the entire month of November. The number was just above $111 billion, according to an Adobe Analytics report. Adobe tracks over $1 trillion U.S. retail site visits. And they are predicting that the 2025 holiday season will be the biggest online spending in American history.” (12/09/25)

https://www.nysun.com/article/affordability-bidens-disaster-and-trumps-cleanup

Source: The Daily Economy
by Peter C Earle

“American households are hurting. With wage growth lagging and inflation compounding, no amount of bluster can mask the math.” (12/09/25)

https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/denying-the-affordability-crisis-wont-change-the-data/

Source: Antiwar.com
by Ron Paul

“Last week the Pentagon, under ‘War Secretary’ Pete Hegseth, carried out yet another military attack on a boat in the high seas that the Administration claims is smuggling drugs. That makes 23 boats blown up by the US military in the waters off Latin America – most near Venezuela – and nearly 100 persons killed. To date the US government has provided no evidence to back up its claim that these boats are smuggling fentanyl and other dangerous drugs into the United States. The US Drug Enforcement Administration has reported that Venezuela neither manufactures nor transports fentanyl to the US. In fact, the DEA still concludes that Venezuela is barely a minor player in the drug game. Is this really about drugs? Or is it about ‘regime change’ for Venezuela?” (12/09/25)

https://original.antiwar.com/paul/2025/12/08/the-hegseth-killings-must-stop

Source: Persuasion
by Damon Linker

“Even if the Supreme Court overturns Trump’s executive order, he may eventually get what he wants.” (12/09/25)

https://www.persuasion.community/p/inside-the-battle-to-abolish-birthright

Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone

“I think first we need to be clear that healing and feeling secure are two different things. Healing isn’t about getting away from uncomfortable feelings, it’s about moving right into them and feeling them fully. After we have done our work and healing has occurred we tend to notice that we feel better, but the actual work of healing begins in discomfort. That’s where the rubber meets the road on this path. Healing is when you find a part of yourself that has been acting out unconsciously over and over again throughout your life, by getting annoyed or upset or collapsing into helplessness, or by freezing up, freezing out, or freaking out. You start paying attention to how these unconscious behaviors play in yourself (either in your outward behavior or privately in your internal suffering), and you get real curious about how that is happening.” (12/09/25)

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/12/09/how-to-heal-when-the-world-is-on-fire/

Source: Liberal Currents
by Joseph Stieb

“Donald Trump’s 2025 National Security Strategy reveals a radical blood-and-soil conception of national strategy based on maintaining white patriarchal Christian domination at home and abroad.” (12/09/25)

https://www.liberalcurrents.com/sovereignty-for-me-none-for-thee/

Source: The Hill

“The Pentagon’s own manual on the laws of war describes a scenario similar to the Sept. 2 boat-strike in discussing when service members should refuse to comply with unlawful orders. ‘For example,’ says Section 7.3 of the manual, ‘orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal.’ But I would argue that all the focus on the ‘double-tap’ is misguided. The real issue, the issue we should be focusing on, is not one illegal double-strike on Sept. 2. The issue is Trump’s whole illegal war. As of this writing, the U.S. military has bombed 23 small boats allegedly transporting illegal drugs off the coast of Venezuela, killing 87 people. And yet to date, the administration has not provided one iota of proof that the boats were actually carrying illegal drugs. Even if they were, those boats posed no national security threat to the U.S.” (12/09/25)

https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/5639880-double-tap-caribbean-bombing/

Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Madsen Pirie

“There are economic, environmental, and practical arguments for making landfill disposal free or even subsidized, rather than charging tipping fees. The major case for free or subsidized landfill disposal is that it reduces Illegal dumping. Charging per ton or per bag creates an incentive for some households and businesses to illegally dump waste to avoid fees. And illegal dumping cleanup is expensive for municipalities, because cleanup costs sometimes exceed the revenue from tipping fees. Eliminating fees would remove the incentive to dump in streets, rivers, or abandoned lots. Free disposal would lead to fewer external cleanup costs. Furthermore, it would encourage proper waste management by small businesses. Many small contractors, such as roofers, landscapers, carpenters face tight margins, and tipping fees can encourage burning waste onsite, causing air pollution, dumping in forests or fields.” (12/09/25)

https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/promoting-free-or-even-paid-for-landfill-use

Source: Washington Monthly
by Bill Scher

“Trump’s clemency record should be viewed alongside his deregulatory agenda, putting global markets at risk.” (12/09/25)

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2025/12/09/trump-pardons-white-collar-crime-deregulation/

Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob

“‘Social sector’ workers — described by Forbes as ‘nonprofit organizations and the social sector at-large’ — have been losing jobs because of budget cuts and corruption cuts. Many newly unemployed are unhappy about having to job-hunt. Some complain about having to take jobs from profit-making businesses. Others lament sparse communication from prospective employers. … Job seekers might feel less demoralized if they didn’t take the impersonal aspects of the search so personally.” (12/09/25)

https://thisiscommonsense.org/2025/12/09/looking4work/

Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Jorge Heine

“The president’s new hemispheric strategy revives interventionist logic while ignoring the region’s urgent need for infrastructure and economic diversification.” (12/09/25)

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-corollory/

Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report

“Another TRILLION Dollar NDAA Military Spending Bill!” (12/09/25)

https://rumble.com/v72sy3u-another-trillion-dollar-ndaa-military-spending-bill.html

Source: Future of Freedom Foundation

“The Message Behind the Caribbean Killings.” (12/09/25)

https://www.fff.org/freedom-in-motion/video/trump-watch-the-message-behind-the-caribbean-killings/

Source: The Bryan Hyde Show

“It’s my weekly sit-down with Eric Peters from Eric Peters Autos. We discuss the latest developments in post-Constitutional America, including the cost of real food, what’s happening to automotive sales and how we can maintain our individual sanity and freedom.” (12/09/25)

https://www.podbean.com/ep/pb-v4rft-19e702d

Source: The Hill

“Robby Soave gives his radar on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appearing to agree with a venture capitalist that alleged narcoterrorists need to be publicly executed.” (12/09/25)

https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/5640289-rising-december-9-2025/

Source: National Review

“With Republicans Like These.” (12/09/25)

https://www.nationalreview.com/podcasts/capital-record/with-republicans-like-these/

Source: The Fifth Column

“UNLOCKED Members Only #290 – AI George Washington, LSD Margaritas, and Tara Reid.” (12/09/25)

https://www.wethefifth.com/p/unlocked-members-only-290-ai-george

Source: Unpopular Front

“Talking to Jeffrey Herf about Reactionary Modernism.” (12/09/25)

https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/talking-to-jeffrey-herf-about-reactionary